


with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair

by WylderWolf



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Abuse, Angst, Child Abuse, Dysphoria, Gender Dysphoria, Humanstuck, M/M, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-03-31 15:58:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3984082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WylderWolf/pseuds/WylderWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>and there will come a time,you'll see</i>
  <br/>
  <i>with no more tears</i>
  <br/>
  <i>and love will not break your heart,but dismiss your fears,</i>
  <br/>
  <i>get over your hill and see what you'll find there</i>
  <br/>
  <i> with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Things go well until they don't. Things go to shit until they get fixed. And Dirk Strider builds a drunk robot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. but melt your headaches, call it home

**Author's Note:**

> watch as a sad trans man shovels his emotions into a fictional trans man
> 
> the trans man is me and the fictional trans man is dirk, just so we're all clear here.

This should be a good thing, you think, your breath casting fog onto the half-misty fiberglass window, adjusting uncomfortably in your seat. Or, at least, it should have been a good thing. You’re still waiting for the good-things epiphany to hit you in such a way that you’re knocked onto your ass in gleeful euphoria. Its a month coming, now, this particular epiphany. You’re starting to wonder if its meant to come at all. Like, hey, have twenty nine days of over-thinking and gray-tinged guilt out of the way with next to zero gratification of foreseeable break in the onslaught, and what can a guy expect? You huff against the glass and press your cheek into the cool surface, staring out onto the melancholy cast of the late fall landscape, pewter-tinged with November weather. Its the setting of some shitty Hollywood horror flick that you have no interest in being a part of.

Your seat partner makes a decently big show of digging his elbow into your side with his colossal yawn, and you shoot him a glare beneath your glasses, returned with a nearly-equal deadpan. The kid quirks a white-blond brow (only a few shades lighter than yours, really) as a means of saying “What, dude, you gonna do something? Because I’m so ready.” You acknowledge the look with an equal “If I weren’t so tired I would fuck your shit up” lip-twitch. Neither of you move or vocalize.

You allow your brother another few seconds of this pissing-match before muttering “Prick” under your breath and cranking the volume up through your earbuds. The display is ritual, practiced, probably more passive-aggressive than necessary. Its easier than saying anything, though. And you know he wouldn’t fall into exactly how sappy that would be. Its all a whole hell of a lot simpler than mentioning that you’re pissed, or that you’re tired, or that you’re kind of glad he’s here, because you have exactly el-zilcho on other options for bus companions. He smirks at you like he knows, anyway, and your lip curls.

Still. He’s someone to sit with. It seemed more important at the beginning of the month, in your first week, before you knew anyone or anything about this place. You were still willing to risk the disadvantages of clinging to your little brother in a hostile environment back then. Even so, a seat at the designated “shitty freshmen” table can only get you so far on a social rung (not that you give so much of a shit about that as you do about getting your ass beat) and so you abscond right the fuck out of that one. 

You make hesitant friendships. You question these on the daily. You do all of this to adapt, even when you’re not so good at that whole thing. 

The bus pulls into the school parking lot with the usual rattling curb-clip, jostling Dave right into your side (“Woah, Dirk, way to push a swooning child when he’s falling, god.”) before it slows to a halt and you;re able to stand.

Its just as clammy outside as it looks.

You’re used to Texas and by fuck do you hate this.

When you first moved up here, you wore too many jackets. Partially for the cold, and partially for the disguise to the soft curve of your chest. You bundle your hoodie around you, now, buffering yourself against the wind tunnel that the school’s front entrance creates. There’s a vivid flash of bubblegum-pink against the sea of earth tones, one that you pinpoint and make a careful bee-line to. Dave’s parting gift is a noncommittal grunt and you shoulder through the bus lane crowd to ease back beside a drastic clash of dark skin against neon.

“Coffee,” you grumble, before Roxy can even get a greeting out, and she has to give you a nasty look before she passes you a steaming, jumbo-sized gas-station coffee. She does, however, wait patiently for you to bitch about the amount of cream and sugar she subjected the drink to before she mentions how tired you look. 

Roxy Lalonde stands about a head shorter than you, though the bouncing fashion of her walk nearly propels her up to your height. She looks up at you with her lips set, one artfully-drawn brow raised.

“Rough weekend?” she asks, taking the coffee back from you and smacking her lips on the sip she takes. 

You speak through a yawn. “That’s a way to put it, I guess.”

“What’s another way?”

“Legal shit,” you say, reaching for the coffee again. “Getting all my stuff transferred here, that’s all.”

 

“Gonna give me any specifics?”

“No.”

She huffs a strand of bright hair out of her face as the two of you enter the school building. You think, maybe, that there might be a part of you that feels bad for not explaining the nuances of your situation to the one person who gives enough of a shit to ask. Granted, you aren’t all that good at recognizing that shit. You gulp down more coffee before she snatches it back, saying something about you being a freeloader, then making a jab at how secretive you are. You reply that this is what make you so damn interesting as she follows you to your locker, and now you’re trapped in a verbal storm you hadn’t prepared yourself for this morning. You mentally smother yourself for saying anything at all.

Roxy will either talk herself out, or class with start. The latter involves a lengthy IM after school that you wont answer (you’d never even given her your info anyway, and you’re still foggy on the details of how she managed to track you down.) but the former involves her being pissy at you for at least three periods before she exhausts herself.

 

You put in your locker combination in the midst of the beratement. Roxy wears herself out with a “friends tell each other things, you know?” that grates just enough for you to glance at her over your glasses. 

“I’ve told you way more than I’ve ever told anyone else in a month of knowing them.”

Her eyes roll. “I had to guess that one, didn’t I?”

You quirk a brow. “More like you broke the ice with it.”

She waves that off, continuing. “I just wanna know when we get to the tragic backstory part of the friendship thing.”

You snort. “What, are you aiming for a specific date, or?”

“Yes.”

“Twenty years from now, at some shitty reunion, I’ll give yo uthe honor of busting in naked with my Frankenstein dick, totally shitfaced, and treat you to the glory of my adolescence in front of the entire senior class.”

Roxy taps the side of her head. “Twenty years? Alright. Got it stored.” She pokes your side, just under the constriction in your ribs, and gives you Serious Face. “You’re not getting off that easy, Strider.”

You shrug. Its all you can muster. 

“So, like, does it really count as a Frankenstein dick if its from other places on _your_ body? Wouldn’t they have to make it out of corpse dicks for that?”

A thin hand falls on her shoulder, and your eyes flit up to the new speaker. “Didn’t you know, Rox? Its the new procedure. Rise of the zombie schlongs.” Cronus raises his hand for a high five that never comes. 

Roxy’s upper lip curls up enough to show the lipstick stain on her teeth. “Gross.”

Cronus lowers his arm and smothers the dejection on his face, chirping out a greeting to you, and makes a grab for Roxy’s coffee, one that she winds away from too quickly for his success. You watch them bicker about it in silence, leaning against the locker with your hands shoved into the pockets of your hoodie.

Ten minutes later, you watch Roxy jog toward her first period class with around a minute and a half to spare, with Cronus standing beside you. He shifts, visibly uncomfortable, reaching up into his short to get at his chest. 

“Wouldn’t it be better to do that in the bathroom…?” you mutter, side-eyeing him.

“C’mon,” he huffs, adjusting the tight fabric. “You get it, right? Don’t tell me you never do that shit in public. You gotta separate, ‘else it ain’t pecs, it's just uniboob.” 

Your laugh is weak and nervous. “Pretty sure that means you binder is shitty, dude.” 

“Nah, just old.” He flops into the seat in front of you, straddling it backwards to face you.

To your knowledge, you found the queer-kid oasis at your school in the form of Roxy and Cronus. All things considered, it could be worse. Roxy appointed herself your surrogate mother, which in _total_ honesty honesty isn’t the worst thing in the world, and Cronus makes up for being an overall douche by understanding particular elements of you one-hundred percent. “Brothers of the no-cock club,” he’d said when Roxy had introduced you. You have no reason to ask for more, even when care gives way to them being wholly overbearing. You think there might be a part of you that appreciates it. 

“So what’d you do to get her panties in a knot?” Cronus asks, picking at something between his teeth. 

You shrug. “Dunno.”

He doesn’t press farther and that’s the end of that.

A person slides into the desk beside you, one that had been empty from the first day you got here until now. You fight back a vague twinge of irritation-- you’d picked your desk for the soul fact that there wouldn’t be anyone beside you-- and keep your eyes on the space beyond Cronus’s shoulder, putting your faith in the socially-constructed common courtesy of not bothering the person next to you.

“Hello! Ah, sorry if I’m intruding, just, it seems as if all the other seats have been taken.”

You obviously put too much faith in the system.

“I just rolled in-- enrolled, I mean-- and I’m a bit lost on… well… a lot of things, really, and I was wondering what I missed so far in this class?”

You can hear a polite smile in the lilted voice. A quick glance to the side shows you a tanned, lean boy, perched to the side of his seat to face you and Cronus. He looks bemused, ruffled, even, with your predicted smile fanned over his face. You look away before the once-over becomes an acknowledgement. 

“Uh,” Cronus answers, before you can initiate the desired barrier. “Ain’t that a question for the teacher?”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see that smile get impossibly wider and more bashful.

“Ice-breaking plans foiled then, eh?” he hums, and stretches a hand out toward Cronus. “I’m Jake.”

You hear Cronus introduce himself with your eyes still tracing the graffiti on your desk. “‘Ey, Dirk, looks like your spots’ gettin’ filled, huh?”

Someone started etching their name into this desk. It started with the letters E-L-A and then it cuts off, marred in part by the inevitable phallus etched across the plastic surface. 

You have a brief moment of panic while the newer new kid-- Jake-- tilts his head at you curiously. The look you give Cronus is wide-eyed, and you can see his dawning realization; your voice is too high. Your voice is far, far too high for this kind of introduction. Its processed quickly and quietly and you speak from your chest, sounding pre-pubescent, sounding _wrong_ , and you feel the blood rush to your face before you manage to contain yourself. 

“Guess so,” you mutter, and it sounds unnatural. You wait for Jake’s revelation.

He doesn’t appear to miss a beat.

“Oh, you’re new, too? Fantastic! Suppose we’ll get along swimmingly then, right?” He leans back in his desk chair. “Where’re you coming from, then? I flew in from New Zealand just a few weeks ago, so, you know, _quite_ the change for me, not to _mention_ the jet lag and all that. Bloody cold here, isn’t it? I didn’t--”

“Easy, Crocodile Dundee,” Cronus interjects, and Jake frowns. “He ain’t a big talker.” You imagine you hear a slight bristle in his voice.

Jake looks taken-aback, and a little embarrassed. “I… oh, terribly sorry.”

You tilt your head toward him slightly and say “Texas.”

His grin returns. “Good lord. So you get the temperature thing, then.”

You nod.

Cronus turns out to be your savior when he starts asking Jake conversational questions about New Zealand, showing off rich-business-child talking skills. It keeps Jake occupied until until your teacher begins to speak, at least. You spend the period picking at a crack in your desk.

When the period ends, you stick close to Cronus, a half-hearted attempt at being too preoccupied to talk. 

Jake is a self-confident and overly-forward bastard who interjects anyway.

“So! Any chance that one of you fine lads could help me find my next class?”

You decide that Jake is a helpless idiot. You look over his shoulder at his schedule, vaguely pleased to know that you’re actually capable of helping him (his second period is your fifth) and motion for him to follow without another word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _*flicks lights on and off* welcome to hell!! welcome to hell!! welcome to hell!!_
> 
> okay this is gonna have some major warnings for abuse and dysphoria later on, but this and the next chapter should be safe aside from the odd offhand comment. also there will probably be awkward smut somewhere along the way, so that rating is subject to change.


	2. when i last saw mary, she lied and said it was her birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in a world where jake english is the literal embodiment of a dog person and everyone wants to beat up dirk for his improper biding techniques

Your sternum is aching and you’re getting lightheaded. Dave catches you massaging your ribs gingerly on the ride home, and he arches his brow at the way you’re wincing, one corner of his mouth twitching down minutely. He doesn’t say anything. For that, you’re grateful. 

Getting off the bus, you focus on stretching out your back, getting air into your lungs, rubbing at your sides as Dave casts you glances out of the corners of his eyes enough times to set you on edge. You try to slip away from him, taking the stair up to your apartment rather than the elevator, but he snags the back of your hoodie before you can escape.

“Okay, I know you’re not the brightest of the bunch, like, definitely not the ripest apple or anything, but doesn’t it make much more sense to _not_ do that.”

He’s deadpanning at you. Of course he’s fucking deadpanning at you. 

You shrug him off and step into the elevator, leaning against the wall and taking long, deep breaths. You can feel Dave eyeing you, and all you can think is how much you kind of want to punch him for the shitty false protective brother thing. That’s your deal. Dave isn’t supposed to show any of his shitty gay emotion, he just _ironies_ at people until they can’t stand his shit anymore. There’s literally no faux-ironic benefit in this situation, so the kid is failing on all accounts, here. You could tell him that. Or you could let him make a steaming douchepile of himself.

You go with the latter and push out ahead of him when the elevator his the top floor. He follows you as you dig your keys out of your pocket and make your way down the hall, walking in and unceremoniously dumping your shit all the fuck over the floor. You don’t see your older brother in the kitchenette to the right, or ahead on the living room futon, so you go ahead and assume that he’s out. You don’t look back at Dave, just make a beeline for your room and kick the door shut behind you.

“You left your stuff,” he calls after you, but you’re already shucking off your shirt to expose the tri-top beneath, then making to uproot the constricting fabric with struggling fingers. It comes away after a moment of sheer tenacity and you take a full breath, only to cough on it at the end.

Your closet harbors a full-length mirror that you can only ignore for so long.

You avoid making eye contact with your reflection as you stretch your arms above your head and feel the stretch in your ribs, wincing slightly, massaging the red indents that your binder left around your midsection. You glance up along the lines of your half-naked self, prodding lightly here and there at the fat deposits on your hips and chest with a vague frown, trying to rub away the tension. Its a daily process. Finally, sighing, you slip on a sports bra over your head and toe the binder into your dirty clothes pile.

Yawning, you slump into the desk chair that sits almost touching the foot of your bed and wake up your desktop computer. It groans to life, leaving you to recline back and rub absently at the dark circles forming beneath your eyes .You wonder briefly how hard it would be to convince Dave to make you coffee, then forfeit the idea at the realization of how much interaction that request would involve. You’re way too tired for anything relating to that bullshit. You hitch a groan on another languid stretch and start up your chat client, figuring you may as well just get this much out of the way, anyhow.

tipsyGnostic began pestering timaeusTestified

TG: okay but  
TG: seriously where do u get off bein so secretive  
TG: im all open book  
TG: n u gotta be all duochey  
TG: *douchey  
TG do i gotta reach like a certain friendship level or smth  
TG: dirk  
TT: Yes.  
TT: That is exactly what you have to do.  
TT: It’s all a big game, and I’m the Bowie-esque final boss of bulging-crotched secrecy and tragic backstories.  
TT: Fight your way to me to prove your worth.  
TG: first of all wut  
TG: second laberinthth wasn’t even a video game  
TG: *laberynth  
TG: *labirynth?  
TG: w/e  
TG: when are we gonna hang out  
TT: In your dreams.  
TG: diiiiiirrrrrk  
TT: What, Lalonde? You wanna watch movies and braid my hair?  
TG: yea  
TT: Hell yes.  
TG: wait rlly  
TT: Maybe. We’ll see. You have yet to venture to Brohood Cove to slay the mighty Pal Beast, so this quest might be a little much for you.  
TG: gdo nerd  
TG: *god  
TG: dont i get a cheat code?  
TT: Patience.  
TG: uuuuughh

You feel a vague smirk fan over your lips as you minimize the chat window and start fucking around elsewhere on the internet, mustering the mental gall to venture out of your bedroom. Roxy messages you a few more times, trying to get a non-cryptic answer, but you mostly ignore it. 

When you finally make your way back out into the apartment and into the kitchenette, you glance at the backpack you dumped by the door, and notice the polaroid selfie set neatly on the small front pocket. Upon inspection, you find a black and white faux-art shot of your younger brother staring wistfully into the painted wooden puppet eyes of one of your _older_ brother’s stranger obsessions. You stand, get a safety pin from the kitchen, and pin the photo to your bag, all without a word.

==>

A now-familiar tanned frame seats itself heavily in the chair across from you. You hear him start talking before you even look up, and you side-glance at Cronus, who does nothing but shrug and grin in the direction of the pink flurry the flops down beside the other. You give Roxy a perplexed look.

“Bringin’ in more strays, Rox?”

There’s a slight “uhff” sound when she kicks Cronus under the table.

“Be _nice_ , you two,” she snaps, and reaches out to touch Jake’s shoulder. “This is -”

“We’ve met,” you interject, and maybe you sound too harsh, because Jake recoils a little, grin faltering. You want to apologize for a brief moment, but the scene passes and Roxy is talking again. You opt to forget the minor incident. You also fail to notice the vague discomfort that settles over the table for a while, even as Roxy plows through the tension with determined cheerfulness.

“Gettin’ sick’a this continent yet, English?” Cronus asks through a bite of cafeteria pizza. 

Jake’s laugh is as lighthearted as the rest of his demeanor. He ruffles his hair a little, glancing between the three of you, as if to assure attention before he begins talking. Your brow quirks, just a fraction watching the minute display with a kind of curiosity stirring vaguely at the back of your mind. “I doubt I will,” he confesses, ducking his head a little. God damn it, that shit can’t be genuine, not with how much he likes talking. The side of your tongue slides between your back teeth. “I mean.. I suppose it got rather boring back home, after a time? This is quite the new beast entirely, all the grit and adventure.” 

His smile is bright. You look away without meaning to.

Cronus snorts. “You sure adventure is the right word there, chief?” He tilts his head back as he stuffs an entirely too-large amount of pizza crust into his mouth. “Figured ‘nightmare’’d be more like it, wilderness kid like you. You had anything deep-fried yet?”

“Erm -”

An arm is slung around your shoulder, and you struggle, momentarily, not to snap something. Namely the limb itself. 

“You ain’t bona-fied American yet, champ. Let us take you out for food a little less shitty than this swill.”

Roxy chirps her agreement. You feel something inside you sinking and twisting all at once. 

Jake leans in to whisper to you and Roxy when Cronus goes to empty his tray.

“I… _have_ actually had deep fried foods before,” he says, almost coyly. “How d’you reckon I break it to him?”

Roxy is giggling too hard for either of you to answer.  
==>

A greeting by ass-slapping isn’t something you’re exactly versed in how to respond to. Especially when the slapper in question is your self-proclaimed best friend, and she’s making you late for the bus, and you’ve just jumped violently enough for _several_ people to turn and look curiously. The light in Roxy’s eyes is mischievous. Your fingers tighten around the strap on your bag.

“Mister Strider,” she says, in a grotesquely false whine. “Why would you take the lesser means of travel when my chariot awaits us outside?”

The corner of your mouth turns down. “Aren’t you and Cronus taking Boy Wonder out for culture shock?”

She pokes your side. “”The invitation actually _did_ extend to you, genius.” She pulls her keys out of her pocket and jingles them at you, beginning to turn away. “You coming?”

There’s an ache starting in your ribs. You shrug. “Sure, I guess.”

Roxy grins, grabbing you by the sleeve of you hoodie and dragging you back toward the main entrance to the school. You follow her with a constricted sigh, ignoring the lighter feeling that swells in your chest.

Her car isn’t quite a chariot. More like an elderly Ford Escort, mauve, with a rusting bumper and rips in the interior. The passenger seat is permanently set a quarter of the way back, and you try to fight your seatbelt while Roxy sweet-talks the car out of a sputtering, wheezing state.

“Come on,” she whispers to the steering wheel. “We’re in this together, babe, you can do it, you can - Ha!” She thumps the heel of her palm against the dash when it starts, then turns to you and offhandedly mentions the shoddy battery, the shoddy engine, the desperate need for an oil change. She says it lightly. You grip the sides of your seat.

“Is this thing safe?” you wheeze, staring ahead with wide eyes.

“Of course she is!” Roxy chimes, patting the steering wheel as she pulls out of the parking lot. “I’m a good driver, don’t worry.”

Your doubts are quelled when you finally get on the road (save for the moment when she goes to text Cronus, at which point you take her phone and stuff it in the glove compartment to an interjection of “aww, _Dirk_ -”). You bring one foot up and rest the ball of it on the dash, leaning back.

“So,” she says, once she’s calmed down from the phone fiasco. “Do I have to separate you and Cro over the cutie?”

Your first reaction is to snort, then to side-eye her with raised brows. “Sorry, what was that?”

She gives you a deadpan nearly worthy of one of your own. “Dirk Strider. I felt your boner from across the table. And Cronus would probably take whatever sits in front of him, like, perpetual bonerality or something, and -”

You’re laughing shallowly, genuinely, in the back of your throat. You thump your head against the headrest and shake it slowly. 

“Cro can have him, far as I’m concerned. He’s… dopey.” You shrug. “Plus all that cutesy stuff is total bullshit.”

 

Roxy gives you a confused look. “What makes you say that?”

“What, did you not see him playing it up? He waits for approval before he says anything. He’s trying to get in good, fast, and I mean - who knows what he’s really like?” You’re gesticulating. Fuck, you’re gesticulating. Gay. “He could be like some post-homeschool freak with a Bible fetish and a big holy cock too far up his ass to -” 

“Ooookay, got it.” She takes one hand off the wheel to flap it at you urgently. “Those are pictures I don’t need in my head.”

“Sorry.”

“But seriously, why were you paying that much attention if you don’t got it bad?”

God damn it. “It was just obvious, okay? Christ.”

She frowns and slumps a little and you chew on your tongue a minute before apologizing, to which she responds by punching you hard in the shoulder. You laugh again and ignore the catch your breath does. 

The diner she pulls into is one that only has a single counter going down the center of the tiny building, besides the two decrepit-looking tables sitting outside in the late-November cold. The amount of cars on the street beside it make you nervous, though you recognize Cronus’s black muscle car among the lineup. The inside is a post-schoolday riot of hot bodies and loud voices.. You start to regret coming. 

Cronus is beside Jake, waving at you and Roxy, motioning to the one open seat that he’s propped one foot on so as to save it for one of you. You and Roxy glance at each other, having the battle before you even reach the conflict, and you gesture her forward with a wry grin and a “ladies first” that prompts her into flicking your forehead.

Jake tries to hop out of his seat before the decision is made, stunted by your gloved hand falling on his wool-clad chest and keeping him there. He falters, half-perched on the stool, and you notice for the first time the his green irises are tinted gold around the pupil. You retract your hand and swallow hard.

“Save it,” you say. “She can take it, I’ll just stand.”

He stutters on his words a bit. “I can--”

“Sit.”

“...Righty-o, then.”

You lean your midsection heavily against the counter space between Roxy and Jake, stretching out your back and sucking in a few grease-flavored breaths that you have to fight not to cough on. Cronus is saying something that you don’t quite pick up on, and Roxy is answering, and Jake is laughing, and there is cotton in the space between your ears. You hope your reactions aren’t so weak that they reveal themselves as feigned. 

Jake prods you in the back. Your back teeth clamp down on your cheek. Turning around is slow, and calculated, and most of your weight goes against the peeling linoleum on the counter. His look is head-tilted politeness. You retain the decency to not spout you immediate thought of “golden retriever.” 

“You quite alright, mate?” he asks, and he is speaking slowly, and you are only blinking. “...Dirk?”

Shit. “Yeah, yeah. A little out of it.” Oh god oh fuck you can’t as Cro for help because it’ll give you both away shit shit _shit_ -

You are an inward storm of self ass-kicking and on the outside, you are shrugging, you are ordering a coke, Cronus is offering to buy burgers for everyone and while Jake vehemently declines you nod without a thought, except you don’t stop nodding, and then you’re teetering, taking breaths that are far too shallow. 

It seems to click with Cronus at the same moment it clicks with you. He gets up in slow motion. Everything becomes too loud and too bright and maybe you don’t register the feeling of falling but you feel the way your head cracks against the leg of Jake’s stool. 

The last thing you hear before lights out is the garbled sound of lilted swearing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based on true events lmao
> 
> dont go to marching band with improper binding techniques my children


	3. sigh no more, no more

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cronus and the trans mother hen, and Bro Strider is just trying to be a chill dude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **MAJOR CHILD ABUSE WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER**

“Cronus Ampora, you let me into that bathroom right _the fuck_ now or I get to break down this door.”

A snort. “Relax, mama bear. We got this. Bro time, you feel me?”

“ _Let me in_.”

You reach up to touch the aching spot on your head. Trying to speak proves futile, and you’re still seeing black spots, so you opt for just a bit more vegetation.

You still can’t breathe right.

Someone took off your shades. Someone, you suspect the same someone, is lifting your upper body just enough to pull your hoodie up over your arms. You try, momentarily, to fight it, until you realize that the action simultaneously squeezes down on your ribs and throbs in your head, and you only go limp again. 

“The fuck--” you slur, and right yourself only slightly. 

“I’m givin’ you a magical gift called oxygen. Lift your damn arms.”

You comply, and Cronus’s fingers dig in a bit too harsh under the nylon hem of your binder and start working it off up over your chest, your shoulders, and somewhere in you there is something screaming _no_ at the top of its lungs until your own fill with air and you can breathe again. It stings, cold, almost, and you’re taking deep chest coughs before you can stop yourself, still lightheaded, still seeing spots. You pull your knees to your chest, blocking it from Cronus’s view and forcing yourself to begin taking slow breaths.

Cronus gives you the courtesy of a few moments to acclimate before he speaks again, but when he does he’s touching you bare skin and you flinch so violently he jerks back.

“Easy,” he says, keeping eye contact, stretching out a hand and hovering it over your shoulder. “Hey, you need to loosen some stuff up, alright? I need to make sure you didn’t crack your ribs or somethin’.” He raises his brows a bit. “Okay?”

You look around slowly, taking in the diner’s singular bathroom (no stalls, just one room), the too-bright light and the sound of Roxy still fighting with the doorknob. You hear another, softer voice, one that takes you a moment to pinpoint as Jake’s, and your jaw clenches in bitten-back embarrassment. You look back to Cronus,who is still making that fucking awful understanding face that stirs in you the urge to punch him. You nod a little and he smiles.

“Okay. Look, you know how to do this, right? Stretch your arms up and cough.”

You shake your head.

“Why?”

Because fuck that.

“Dirk.”

God damn it.

Cronus sighs and sighs and shakes his head and you’re too intent on the pattern of the tile floor to notice what he’s doing at first, but wow okay holy shit Cronus is stripping his shirt off and peeing away a tanktop and undoing the corset clasps along his side and then he’s every bit as shirtless as you are. 

“The fuck--”

“Can you maybe, y’know, stop being a pussy for two seconds and let me take care of you?” He stands, tan and domineering and you’re not _actually_ sure if you’re scared or if you’re getting one of Roxy’s proverbial boners. He offers you a hand that you take tentatively, and you stand in front of him bare-chested and resigned. He glances down for the barest instant and says “nice” with a tiny smirk that makes you shove him back lightly, which, in turn, sends a lance of pain through your ribs and nearly has you crumpling again.

“Alright, alright. Here,” he reaches his arms above his own head and takes slow, deep breaths, and waits for you to mirror the action. “Stretch,” he says, moving his own limbs back and your embarrassment starts fading to envy. Cronus has rich-boy insurance-fed features, arms beginning to take on defined muscle, his stomach adopting light hair along his navel. You’ve already begun noticing his steadily deepening voice, his hardening jawline, and now _this_ is putting your soft curves to shame. You sigh, you stretch, you gingerly touch your ribs to check for damage and Cronus picks up your binder off the floor. 

“...Hey,” he starts, brow furrowed. “You know this is a small, right?”

“Yeah?” You’re putting your shades back on. “And?”

“You’re not an A cup, dude.”

“Fuck you.”

He tosses it back in you direction and reaches into his bag, pulling out a sports bra and handing it to you with his mouth set. “Don’t give me shit. I’m a large, and you need a medium before you hurt yourself.” He gestures to the bra. “And fuck, dude, start keepin’ one’a those with you, alright? No more than eight hours. You’re gonna be thirty with back problems and tits down to your knees.”

You snort. “They’ll be gone by then.”

“Not if all your money goes to ER bills, my man.” He slips his own binder back on, adjusts, and gets dressed while you pull the bra on over your head and avoid making eye contact with the mirror. 

You swallow hard. “How much of the place noticed?”

“You literally passed out in the middle of a burger joint.”

“I’m gonna give us away,” you say, rubbing at your temples.

Cronus only shrugs. “Okay? I don’t care all that much about me, but--”

“You don’t look like a girl,” you mutter flatly. His look is the equivalent of a heart-monitor flatline. He sighs.

“Listen, okay? Nobody's gonna care. Just say you’re sick, toss on your hoodie, lemme buy you a frickin’ burger and get the fuck outta here.”

“Not everyone’s gonna drop it.” You eyes flit to the door. Your arms are crossed protectively over your stomach, fighting against the unending ill feeling that starts enveloping you.

Realization dawns on Cronus’s face. “Oh, shit. ‘Kay, listen, I don’t think Jake is gonna want your dick any less if it's fake.”

“Fuck off, that’s not what I meant.”

“Then why are you worried?”

Shit. “Forget it, Cro, buy me food.” You push past him out of the bathroom, hunching your shoulders forward to hide the bulge in your chest. Roxy throws her arms around you before you get past the doorway, and you’re avoiding every goddamn face that stares, especially Jake’s, _especially Jake’s_ \--

“Oh lord, chap, are you alright?”

Chap.

“I was worried, do you-- erm. Can I get you anything? Water, or. Or something.”

Goddamn motherfucking _chap_.

“Okay but are you hurt? Did you break anything? Cronus fucking Ampora I am going to slit your throat take this boy to the hospital-- _Dirk_ you _fainted_ oh my _god_ \--”

Jake rests his hands on her shoulders and guides her, gently, off of you, flashing that apologetic smile, all lopsided and soft and you suddenly kind of want to punch Cronus again, though you don’t know why (you know exactly why).

You stay quiet while they calm Roxy down, and you wordlessly accept the seat Jake offers you, let Cronus buy you food, let Roxy fuss and hug you too much and not once does Jake English ask why the hell you fainted in the middle of a greasy diner.

==>

“I need a new binder.”

He looks up, slowly, from his computer, one brow arched, lips pulled flat. He waits for you to elaborate. When you don’t, he sighs, closes his laptop, and sits up enough on the couch to make veiled eye contact with you.

“Fuck’ve you been?” he asks, words slurred from a constant lack of speech.

“Out with friends.”

He adjusts, sitting straighter, tipping his shades down enough to let you see a flash of amber eyes. He’s not overly amused.

“That’s good.” He ruffles his hair. “Fuck you need a new binder for? I bought you one last month.”

You let your bag fall on the floor beside you and pull your hoodie off. “The one you bought me is too small. I can’t breathe right in it.”

“I bought the size you told me to.”

“I was wrong.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a sharp, loud sigh. “Who’s damn fault is that?”

You flinch back. He softens minimally. 

“Okay, look, kid. I only got so much money, you feel me? I can’t drop forty bucks every time you get a little lightheaded.”

You’re biting the inside of your cheek and glaring at him over the coffee table. You take your shades off, meeting his gaze directly, your hand shaking a little and painfully aware of how much you have the potential of pissing him off, depending on the mood of the day. You think it hits him, too, and he leans back a fraction of an inch.

“Bro, I passed out today. I need it.”

His eyebrows raise for an instant before he settles back to stoicism. He looks at you for a long moment, thinking, before he shrugs with a drawn-out sigh.

“Yeah, okay, okay. I’m not gonna let you die or anything. Send me the link to whatever the fuck you need. Make it a good one, ‘cause I’m not doing this again for a while, got it?”

You nod.

“Are you okay?” His voice is too flat. Granted, it always is. 

You shrug. 

“I’m serious. Do I need to take you to the hospital or anything?”

“How much are hospital bills, Bro?”

“Give me any more shit and we’ll find out real fast.” He does this harden-soften thing, pissed one second then worried the next. His worry is uncomfortable, deeply wrong, as if he’s unused to the feeling and unsure of how to handle it. You hate that you can’t tell what he’s thinking the way Dave can. You can see the wheels turning without any idea of the outcome.

“Look,” he says, and there’s something dropped and serious in his tone that you _hate_ because he’s not _him_ like this. This isn’t a brother thing, this is a parent thing, he can’t be like-- “I agreed to let you live here so you’d be safe, alright? I got the same background you do, little man, I understand that. Do me a favor and don’t make me have to spoon-feed you and wipe your ass to _keep_ you safe.”

Your jaw is clenched tight and aching. 

“I’m not them, you hear me?”

Fuck this. Fuck this whole thing entirely.

“God damn it-- I’m talking to you.”

You’re walking away.

“Fucking _listen_ , stop being a brat and get your ass back over here--”

You run away from it. You run away from it.

==>

It was bruises back then. It was sharp. It was bright orange-red like hate and too hot to touch. Maddening consistency. You were never there, never clean, never--

You are thirteen. You like how you look in dresses because they tell you you should. It was bruises back then. You remember vividly the first time they told you that you have a mouth on you, because they damn near tried to knock your lips away and peel them off the surface of your skull. 

You like the way you look in violet and blue because they say you should. This is normal. This is normal. You run away from it.

You never know that you are, in truth, a sinner, because they never tell you that you are. Organized religion is a formality they have no time for, and as it turns out all that you are is _unnatural, sick_ , you need _help_ finding reason in the simplicity of XX chromosomes and then you’ll be happy, their dismissive science will lead you to the light. You know this because they tell you so. And they tell you, and they tell you, and they _tell you_ \--

You do not tell yourself how to ask for help. You learn to ignore it, because they do. Being a social pariah is a far worse fate than thinking about how pretty you look. You are fifteen. You will not be a disgrace because you are told not to be. You learn that you have a mouth on you. You learn to keep it shut. Because they tell you to.

They learn that you are a disgrace in the way that you close-- you cannot be bubbly or bright. You cannot fold your legs tight beneath the lace. 

It was bruises back then. They learn to quell you with words because you will _always_ contest physicality, but expression of thought is hard since they beat it right the fuck out of you.

You are sixteen when you call him. You are crying, almost too hard to correct him when he says your birth name like a whiplash through the receiver. You do correct him, though, and he doesn’t question it, and when he comes to get you they lose a third son to three a.m. packing and bolting.

It was bruises back then. You get in the truck and don’t speak. You run away from it. You run away from it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I would like to note that Bro is Dave's Bro, not Alpha Dave, though Alpha Dave does exist in this au**
> 
> also hhhahaha strider angst is my favorite angst okay these boys are precious and their parents are shit


End file.
